When writing your personal statements, is it adviced to include or avoid contractions?
For context, I'm having trouble fitting all of my content into the character limits, and using the contractions would help the statement fit in the limits but also 'read' smoother/easier for the reader.
Any clarity or suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!
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This is just food for thought, and anyone is welcome to disagree with me. I'm just going to put this out there...
Historically yes. In general, in a more formalized writing piece, prior writing guidelines said you shouldn't rely on a ton of contractions. However I generally feel AI has changed that perception. My sister is an English professor. As soon as AI was introduced she said she could instantly smell when someone had used AI without using any kind of software detector (and YES obviously they’ll use these AI detector tools, not the point of what I am saying).
Why could she spot it instantly? Because AI doesn't have a unique "Voice." In creative writing, voice is what separates you from other writers. Yes, companies are starting to modify that and try to give AI a style that that is tailored to them. But, I think in the literature community there is a return to the emphasis and importance of the "human" element of writing, which is distinction in your Voice and that comes out in your writing style.
Writing professionals used to try to be more mindful of traditional rules for formal/academic writing. Because the prior intent of that was to specifically adhere to a more formal tone when appropriate.
But AI co-opted that when it was first built. For the much worse (in mine, and many other writers opinions). And for you, your writing voice could be using more frequent contractions. And isn't a personal statement meant to represent you?!
I would see it this way: 1) Are the contractions enhancing the tone/style of your writing or detracting from it? 2) Are you just using it to try to save space? If so, you'll probably worsen the piece if you jam them in everywhere to save a few sentences. It wouldn't be worth it in my opinion to make your writing suffer.
In general, it's better to write without using contractions but you also have to do what you have to do!
Out of curiosity, what school is this? If we're talking about a character limit rather than a word limit, that makes it sound like the PS is built within the app form itself. I'm not aware of any American law schools that do that, so I'm just curious!
I read contradictions 😂